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How does character advancement work in your games?


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As someone who came back to the Hero System after a very long break, I often suffer from decision paralysis when spending my experience points. I try to spend experience to boost my effectiveness while also staying true to my character concept, but I freely admit I've made some terrible design choices along the way. Fortunately, my Champions GM is rather accepting about character redesigns and will even suggest design improvements. I like not having to suffer forevermore for one bad idea I had during character design. However, I have no idea how common or uncommon this experience is in the greater HERO system community.

 

Since there are no level or class constraints in HERO system to guide us, do you or your players also struggle with how best to spend experience points? Do you horde them up until you can afford a big ticket item or do you spend them as you get them? Once spent, are the points forever set in stone, or can you concede design defeat and try again at your new point total?

 

I've mostly spent my points as I get them, with the occasional saving for a big ticket item, but with lenient redesigns I also frequently find myself judging my character on his current utility. Are my attacks and defenses up to the campaign standards/limits? Is there a new power, perk, or skill that would both fit my character concept and help the team? For example, I recently added a group-flight power, but I haven't gotten to use it yet. If my fellow players continue to demonstrate self-sufficiency with travel powers, I know I will consider these points wasted, and I'll want to better spend them elsewhere. Does this kind of dynamic happen in your games too?

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As a GM I don't allow continuous redesigns of characters as I feel that it leads to a constant flood of characters that I have to approve in my inbox.  I allow my players to do optimizations at specific points in the character's progression (every 50 XP).  They aren't allowed a full rewrite but can make powers more efficient/effective at that time.  One thing that generally frosts my ass is the tendency for players to be very reactive to the game before.  The "Oh Crap we got hit by a ton of drains!" purchase of Power Defense and such.  I like players to develop their characters organically and grow as such.  Personally I have a tendency to hoard XP to spend on larger purchases, the occasional skill purchase notwithstanding.  I also require my players to describe how and why their character grew in a specific way.

 

Just my $.02,

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One idea I've thought about for a while is for players to build an idealized 'experienced' version of their character to go along with their 'rookie' version.  This accomplishes a number things.  It gives the player a rough roadmap of where they want to go with future XP.  It also gives the GM insight on this as well which can help them plan better story lines and adventures.  It does NOT have to be a straightjacket for the player.  I think of it as just one more piece of the ongoing conversation between the player and gm.  Like all plans it will probably not survive unchanged once the game begins.  Even so, it would still be a useful tool for all involved.

 

HM

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It happens both ways in my group.  For the most part my players will spend the XPs as they get them (adding a DC here, improving a Skill there, and I also require them to explain how it came about), but there have been a few times when somebody will have their eye on a new Power and save them up for a Big Bang.

 

Just recently one of my players spent XPs she'd been saving for about a year to buy off Limitations so that her powers were permanent instead of requiring an injection every time she wanted to use them (I guess she got tired of her GM exploiting the OIHID and Charges).  I worked the change into the scenario (she accidentally ingested three vials of her 'special serum' after they'd been heated to boiling in a fight with her arch-villain), which makes it much more memorable.

 

That's the closest I come to allowing a full redesign:  if you want to save enough XPs for a "radiation accident", then we'll do it.  Otherwise, those points are locked in unless a do-over is necessary, like when moving from one edition to another. 

 

I really like that idea of drawing up two versions of the character, Hyper-Man.

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That's the closest I come to allowing a full redesign:  if you want to save enough XPs for a "radiation accident", then we'll do it.  Otherwise, those points are locked in unless a do-over is necessary, like when moving from one edition to another. 

 

Are your players experienced enough with HERO and character design that they don't suffer from purchase regret or do they just have to suffer with any bad purchases they make?

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Are your players experienced enough with HERO and character design that they don't suffer from purchase regret or do they just have to suffer with any bad purchases they make?

 

That's a good point.  I helped them to avoid any obviously bad purchases when they were first starting out as HERO players, and they're to the point now where they know what they're doing.  So we've never had a situation where a player realized after a couple of sessions that their design isn't working.

 

For newcomers to HERO, I probably would allow them to rework a build if it became obvious early on that the character isn't working the way he or she wanted.

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As a general rule, I allow New Characters one "Full-Rebuild" with no questions asked, and I typically allow an unlimited number of partial- or full-rebuilds with appropriate justifications. However, I've never had a player abuse the privilege, if they did it might force me to become more strict.

Revisions made to make the character more efficient, or to make their powers function as intended almost always get approved. For example, in my last Champions Campaign my wife built a Light-Manipulator using the Superhero Gallery, and took Personal Immunity Darkness as one of the slots of her Attack Multipower. After the first session it became quite clear that she was chafing at the restrictions imposed by having that power in the same reserve as her Blast and Flash, and also that she didn't need a Darkness Field as large as would fit in the pool, so I allowed her to trade it for a smaller Uncontrolled Personal Immunity Darkness field (with the same cost as the old Darkness power). This allowed her to set up the field one phase, and then fire Blasts into/out of it on subsequent phases like she wanted too.

 

In terms of XP expenditures, my wife likes to horde her XP for big-ticket items, but most of my other players have tended to spend their XP more or less as it came in.

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 One thing that generally frosts my ass is the tendency for players to be very reactive to the game before.  The "Oh Crap we got hit by a ton of drains!" purchase of Power Defense and such.  I like players to develop their characters organically and grow as such.  

 

This. I see it all the time.  Get hit by one little drain and suddenly the group gadgeteer whips up single continuous renewable charge OIF generators that do 3d6 stun when they first get turned on that need to be touched to activate for everyone to spend a few character points on: 

 

Power Defense (15 points) (15 Active Points); 1 Recoverable Continuing Charge lasting 1 Minute (-1/2), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (-1/2), OIF Durable (-1/2), Gestures (-1/4)

 

Which leaves me with the position of either specially targeting them with enemies that pack Dispel Power Defense for some reason (lots of it and which will ensure that they spend 3 more xp on making it x4 AP difficult to dispel in the future), have high dexterity and entangles, spend time hammering on the durable focus (which, admittedly, is pretty fragile by default) ... yes, lots of options but all of the sudden if I want to make those disadvantages on the bargain basement generators to mean anything I have to go out of my way,

 

I can't fault them for it ... it's *technically* organic evolution: you are faced with a challenge and you, as a team, rise to do something about it... but it does indeed 'frost my ass' sometimes. 

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I generally make it clear to my players that no amount of "reactive"-building will save them if I want to throw something at them they cannot defend against. I also make it clear that I don't do it often; but when I do it will​ work, by hook or by crook. This is one of those things you and the players should be on the same page regarding before the game begins.

 

For example, one monster I threw at my Champions group was a Mutant Toad with a Supersonic Croak (Blast, AVAD (Hearing Flash Defense), Does BODY, Area of Effect (Cone)). However I only used that monster once, if they had bought Hearing Flash Defense just on the off chance that monster appeared again, they would have wasted points. 

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I generally make it clear to my players that no amount of "reactive"-building will save them if I want to throw something at them they cannot defend against. I also make it clear that I don't do it often; but when I do it will​ work, by hook or by crook. This is one of those things you and the players should be on the same page regarding before the game begins.

 

For example, one monster I threw at my Champions group was a Mutant Toad with a Supersonic Croak (Blast, AVAD (Hearing Flash Defense), Does BODY, Area of Effect (Cone)). However I only used that monster once, if they had bought Hearing Flash Defense just on the off chance that monster appeared again, they would have wasted points. 

 

There are different flavors of reactive-building. Reactions to common occurrences like "I burn a lot of END every fight" or "I take a lot of STUN/BODY every fight" are probably proper reactions. Reactions to the rare-scary-monster-of-the-week (RaSMOW) like "I need resistant hearing flash defense to stand up against Killer Croaker" are expensive mistakes. It's just taken me awhile to tell the difference between these reactions.

 

The first time I got my ass handed to me by a RaSMOW I thought, "I am vastly underpowered and need to fix this gap in my defenses." When a different RaSMOW beat me with a different trick I clued in that "We're not supposed to be invulnerable. I don't have to spend points trying to protect myself against every conceivable AVAD." However I'd already spent some points on one rare defense (resistant mental defenses in my case). It was nice having the option to rebuild around my original concept and stop participating in an arms race.

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